


You and Him (hurts more than it ought to)

by ThebanSacredBand



Series: What Is A Man Without His Shadow? [3]
Category: Ancient History RPF
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Don't copy to another site, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Poisoning, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/pseuds/ThebanSacredBand
Summary: The further away from Macedon they travelled, the stranger everything became. And even Alexander, his constant, was not behaving the same way towards Hephaistion as he had used to.It was Bagoas’ fault.Bagoas has become more of an issue for Hephaistion than he had initially reckoned





	You and Him (hurts more than it ought to)

The further away from Macedon they travelled, the more different everything became. And even Alexander, his constant, was not behaving the same way towards Hephaistion as he had used to.

It was Bagoas’ fault.

The eunuch had hated Hephaistion ever since that first night when Hephaistion had told him where he stood. Hephaistion had decided to act as though he had forgotten the boy’s very existence – he hadn’t, of course he hadn’t, Alexander and what he did and who he talked to was never far from Hephaistion’s attention.

But now Bagoas' every action was grating on him.

Every time Hephaistion wanted to talk to Alexander in private Bagoas was there, hanging off the king’s arm like a lady’s bracelet, clinging to his neck like a cloak. Hephaistion would walk past the guards only to find Alexander otherwise occupied, each and every time.

And, every time, Bagoas would meet his eyes, and smile as if he knew something, and whisper into Alexander’s ear. And, every time, Alexander would turn round and smile at Hephaistion like nothing had changed, and Hephaistion would make up a reason he had come – for the real reason was never something he would trust Bagoas with - and he and Alexander would discuss it briefly and Hephaistion would leave.

Bagoas was definitely plotting something, Hephaistion could feel it, a sort of intuition roiling in his stomach each time he saw the eunuch coiled around Alexander.

No-one had lasted so long in Alexander’s favour before, no-one but Hephaistion himself. He’d had no bad feelings when it was the first few times, why would he? He knew Alexander was devoted to him, needed _him_. The other half of his soul. But now, here was Bagoas, always there, whispering schemes in the king’s ear.

Bagoas needed to be dealt with. And quickly.

Hephaistion was no stranger to _dealing_ with people. Sometimes people stood in the way of Alexander’s conquests, and Hephaistion was not going to let that happen.

It would be nice if he could deal with Bagoas in the same way. But Bagoas was not Philotas. Engineering the death of the son of Parmenion had been easy enough – honestly, he’d brought part of it on himself, and if Hephaistion subtly blew it out of proportion, that was between him and the gods. But there was no clear way to spin the execution of Bagoas as something that would benefit Alexander. Bagoas _meant_ something to Alexander, in the way his father’s general and his son did not.

Hephaistion could engineer a way to accuse Bagoas of treason, he supposed, but that would mean that Alexander would be in charge of dealing out the punishment. And, in Hephaistion’s experience, Alexander was always tender towards those he cared about. Hephaistion could not be sure the king would be able to follow through on punishing Bagoas, no matter how damning the evidence against him.

So no involvement in treasonous conspiracies this time. Bagoas needed to be dealt with quickly and silently and secretly, and by Hephaistion alone.

It was easy enough for Hephaistion to work out a means of murder. He had learnt much from Aristotle through his childhood, and had continued to exchange letters with him throughout his journey East – the old man was always interested in new animals or plants, especially when Hephaistion sent him back some things to look at. And Aristotle had never quite _seen_ Hephaistion, not in the way Philip had, and had always been more than willing to share anything that Hephaistion asked for.

He had asked about poisons years ago. And he had kept all of the letters he had been sent.

However, while he had easily worked out which poison to use to have a similar effect to a natural death, it was harder to procure it. He had to take his time; find a herbalist who supplied such a thing, to go in disguise at a time when he would not be missed (an evening, then, while Alexander was otherwise occupied with his boy), to pay a large enough money that no questions would be asked or answered.

And when he had achieved all of that, he still had to wait until they were far enough away that no-one would think to question the woman he bought them from. There was always a chance that however much money would not be enough.

And each day he waited was another day of Bagoas-and-Alexander, of the possibility of the only person who was important being manipulated into thinking that Hephaistion was.

But finally, finally, when they had settled in for winter and there was a sense of routine, Hephaistion had the poison, and the opportunity, and he had to act.

It was easy enough to find Bagoas’ room – it was not too far from Hephaistion’s own, which would have frustrated him to no end if I hadn’t made everything so much easier. And Bagoas would spend the evening out of his room – he was in Alexander’s, where else would he be – but he would always return for the night to sleep, as Alexander had always preferred to sleep alone. Each night before he went to see Alexander he would pour a glass of wine, and he would drink it once he returned, right before he went to sleep. All Hephaistion had to do was add a few drops and the Persian boy would not wake in the morning.

(How Hephaistion came into this information, well, that was between him and a well-satisfied serving boy, who was well aware he would find himself lacking a tongue if he even dreamt of saying anything. Hephaistion had a bit of a reputation.)

When the time of action arrived, he did not light any torches. He was not a fool. Instead he crept across the floor by the weak starlight, until he was next to the bed, next to the wine.

Hanging over the goblet, the vial of poison tilted so it was ready to pour, Hephaistion was struck, as if by Zeus, that he could not go through with this, that he could not make Alexander miserable. This was his Alexander after all. It hurt each time he saw the king cry. Like he was aching on the inside, knowing there was nothing he could truly do to help. It hurt because he knew that, when Alexander wept, he was distracted, he was not preparing for the next step in achieving what he was born to do. And if he was not achieving his goals, then how could Hephaistion achieve his?

Yes, that was why it hurt Hephaistion when Alexander wept, of course it was, what else could it be? And killing Bagoas, that would only make Alexander mourn, hold him back even further. He paused, hanging over Bagoas’ cup, frozen with the thought. How could he do this, how could he hurt Alexander and his conquests so?

But then, in his mind’s eye, all he could see was Bagoas, perched on Alexander’s lap, kissing the shell of his ear, whispering his own poison directly into the king. As he was probably doing right at this moment. And the sharp, stinging pain _that_ caused, that Alexander was being ruined while Hephaistion sat by doing nothing, that hurt worse.

Hephaistion scowled to the dark room. Let Alexander mourn. The hurt of Bagoas dying might cause Alexander some anguish in the short term, but it was better than allowing him to be slowly poisoned by the Persian boy.

Besides, Bagoas was just a eunuch. There were plenty more for Alexander to choose from, if he wanted. Though, if he did, Hephaistion would endeavour to get him to choose one a little less clever.

He tipped the vial.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my bullshit :p Sorry it took so long for another installment it felt too weird to write this while I was living back home with my parents for the summer.  
Before anyone says anything, I don't care what Mary Renault says, Bagoas is only mentioned once in the historical record so he doesn't have to survive if I don't want him to.  
I am significantly more sorry about the fact that this is kind of set at the wrong time; the story about in Plutarch about Bagoas takes place in Gedrosia c325/4 BCE, while this is (in my head at least) set around 329/8 BCE, hence Philotas and Parmenion being the only mentioned casualties. This is partly because I want Bagoas out of the way if I ever write a section about Roxana, and partly because it just doesn't work in a character-development sense with other sections I've already written, which is I guess what happens when you don't plan things...  
And also (sorry!) I don't know much about poisons so I just made one up that does what I want it to because plot.  
Anyway, if you want to, please let me know your opinions either in the comments of at my tumblr [thebansacredbanned](https://thebansacredbanned.tumblr.com/), I'm interested in what people think!


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